The Runaway

by Elmaster48

Part 1

Life for anypony in Manehattan can be beautiful or difficult depending on the pony status, the connections it has and in general: the power a pony has. Might be a beautiful city at the surface, but there it prospered the mentality of might equals right. And it was in full force in the poorest sections of the city.

Many ponies had parents giving them this mentality, some were lucky enough to have parents that raise them to value friendship over power.

And then there were the foals that grew in the streets, living off stealing or menial work to get by. These poor creatures got the nickname runaways, regardless of them actually having fled from broken homes, orphanages, being thrown out of their homes or simply having parents that ignore them every day. Every foal had a different story but all of them share the label runaway by the ponies of Manehattan.

Cozy Glow have one of these stories, she never knew her parents, she was raised in an orphanage, the only thing she truly had was her name. She felt like she was a prisoner without hope of scape, at least until she heard tales of the runaways…

The part she only heard was the part of them surviving on their own, without the mistreatment of the caretakers or the indifferences of parents. She escaped the orphanage and stowaway in a train that went right into Manehattan.

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Right there she discovered the harsh truth of living on her own. There were small gangs of foals who organize to protect themselves from law enforcement and be more effective in their robberies. Foals who tried to work doing menial work were the ones truly on their own… and the primary victims of the different gangs.

Power was something she lacks, she wasn’t an earth pony so her strength alone would mean nothing in a fight, especially for being so small, neither a unicorn so any magical attack or intimidation with magic was out of the question, she was a pegasus, even thou the ability of fly was remarkable for her age… it mean nothing in a fight if the pegasus was only a untrained filly, the only thing cozy could do if any gang tried to steal from her was to run.

Every time.

Maybe running away was her special talent, but the fact she never got a cutie mark for that and sometimes got caught and got a beaten as a result she knew it wasn’t the case.

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In a cold night, injured, tired and starving after ones of those times he got caught and didn’t get anything to eat Cozy Glow contemplated her life choices and options.

she might had endure this for a couple of years, but the filly knew that she couldn’t continue like this, she either had to go back to an orphanage and hope don’t get daily punishments to keep her obedient like in the orphanage she grew up or continue to receive beatings and continuing starving. Cozy Glow refused to be powerless again, so she decided to see if she could join one of the gangs.

At the next morning Cozy Glow was still considering her options, some of the gangs she knew them well: the firecrackers, the skull hammers or the silver hooves. But the most powerful gangs were the snake bitters and the little dragons. Neither of them get along, some them had stolen from her at least once, but all needed any help and with that she could finally get power.

Cozy was walking through the market. Little dragon territory, hoping she could recognize any member to ask them to join. Then she saw a couple of grown up ponies talking, behind them a little filly taking some Fruits and putting them in her saddlebag, the clerk didn’t notice, he was too busy flirting with the mare.

The mare could see clearly how the filly was stealing food and other essential, but refused to do anything about it. She either did not care about it… or she was collaborating with the little thief.

Cozy Glow saw how the thief became more confident and finally decided to move to the cash register, she could not see it clearly but the filly probably used some kind of tool to open the machine and took the bits and put them in her saddlebag before walking away with her loot.

That for poor little Cozy Glow was a revelation, maybe she was weak, but by using manipulation she could finally get power.

From that revelation come a silly plan, if it works she could get all the power she wanted, if it fails she would had to run away from Manehattan and try again somewhere else.

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Cozy stalked the thief to her hideout, a small ramshackle warehouse in an abandoned amusement park, it was all of nothing.

She knocked the door but nobody answered, she knew at least the little thief was there. But no answer came, she was growing more frustrated, she was about to try to bust the door open…. but then somepony opened the door.

Once the door was open cozy glow could see the thief… and the rest of her gang, 5 fillies and 3 colts. Cozy Glow without flinching talked to the thief.

¨I saw what you did.¨

The gang were seen her with eyes of pure rage, they believed she could do gooder, probably raised in an ivory tower and too stupid to realize she was about to get the beating of her life.

¨I want to join.¨

The thief that cozy glow previously followed walked towards the little pegasus and said to her.

¨We are a small gang, we can barely feed, why you want to join us instead of a big one?¨

Cozy knew the thief wasn’t asking out of curiosity, but for deter her from joining. She knew the gang, even thou it was small… it was a successful, the thief managed to steal without being seen by the clerk, and had at least an adult in the gang helping for them, so they were successful in spite of their small numbers.

Just what Cozy needed, she then told to her future ally.

¨I know, but what if I told you that we can destroy the rest of the gangs.¨

The filly was confused, now she was aware the pegasus standing in front of her wasn’t a do gooder, clearly a fellow runaway. But she now was proposing declaring war on gangs that could crush them?

¨Notice how your hideout is a secret, most gangs put paintings to make clear to who belong too, yours not. Yet you were robbing at little dragon territory, I know you are not one of them, they never steal from shops, and if they did they would use force instead of intelligence.¨

Another filly, a small unicorn of the small group from the hideout walked towards Cozy and spoke to her.

¨Look, we don’t want my people to fight another gang, we just want to survive, in fact that mare that help us will get most of the bits of the last robbery and we only get to keep the food. We aren’t strong enough to join more powerful gang and the only reason why we don’t try to find some job is because we would become targets for the rest of the gangs.¨

Cozy Glow knew she was the leader of the gang. She smirked and said to the filly.

¨I know, but I never said we needed to fight them directly, we could try to provoke them into attacking each other, the grownups don’t care about runaway gangs because their worse outburst are always small, but if we provoke them to attacking each other they would be pursued by the law, you no longer had to worry about silly dragons or snake bitters.¨

The unicorn was skeptical but allowed Cozy to continue

¨unlike your gang, those fools make clear who they are, where they live, only reason why grownups don’t go after them is because they simply don’t care, but if violence sparks the rest of Equestria could notice, and the mayor in an attempt to save face would put an end to the gangs, you managed to get your gang out of their sight. You don’t have to worry about them anymore, those gangs will be gone.¨

The offer was intriguing to the unicorn, they survived a long time, but their little operation would go crashing down if the rest of the gangs discover they were robbing in their territories, having the opportunity be able to rob freely without the fear of competition was an offer she couldn’t refuse, she just wanted a question.

¨What is your name?¨

The little pegasus, realizing her plan was starting to work smiled and answered to the unicorn.

¨Cozy Glow.¨

Comments

[josue]

I like the concept of a schemer this is what makes me interested in this character a girl from nothing becomes something bigger than she was originally